Tuesday – 121112

Oly Deadlift vs. the CrossFit Deadlift ~ Luke Palmisano

We sometimes get feedback from athletes who say that they are confused about how coaches have them set up for deadlifts on different days. A lot of times this has to do with days with deadlifts in the workout, verses days with cleans or snatches in the workout. Allow me to explain.

It’s all in the hips. Could it be any simpler?? All right, allow me to explain again.

In the CrossFit deadlift, hips are high. High enough, in fact, to allow the hamstrings to be under tension. Not so high, however, that the hips are above the shoulders. Most often though, you will see CrossFitters performing deadlifts in a workout with a near-horizontal torso at the bottom of the movement (when the bar is either touching the ground, or near ground level). Again, this positioning is because of the muscles we are trying to recruit. We want the glutes and hamstrings to be carrying the load. It’s not a dynamic movement; the importance of body positioning is relative to recruiting the strongest available muscle groups.

In the Olympic deadlift (the deadlift associated with the Clean and Snatch), the hips are lower (See, it’s all in the hips. Told you.). Why? Because now we’re not worried about recruiting the strongest muscle groups. We are concerned about putting our body in the most optimal position to jump from. This would be a more upright torso position. This helps you control the trajectory of the bar, as well as perform a faster jump, which helps you get under the bar faster. So body positioning is more important than the muscles we recruit. If you compare your one-rep-max deadlift verses your one-rep-max clean or snatch, you may notice that your deadflift number is much higher. Why? Because how much we clean or snatch is not dependent on how much we deadlift. It’s dependent on how much we can front squat and overhead squat, respectively. So higher hips is discouraged in the Oly lifts.Skills Practice : Warm up the SnatchMobility : Shoulders and Thoracic SpineWOD : For time
5 Squat Snatch(155/105)
400 m run
4 Squat Snatch
300 m run
3 Squat Snatch
200 m run
2 Squat Snatch
100 m run
1 Squat SnatchCool Down : 3 sets of 15 Hollow Rocks